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Faith, Reason and Truth


Springheel

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I get the impression you've never read the Bible.

 

It always boggles my mind how many people claim to "believe" in the Bible, yet they haven't actually read more than a couple verses.

 

When I started I had so many questions, criticisms, and generally low faith, but the book answered them all for me

 

Or it can do the reverse....

 

"The best cure for Christianity is reading the Bible." - Mark Twain, American novelist (1835 - 1910)

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I've read it through at least 2x. But after going to Kabbalah with my wife and learning about Midrash I suspect that "read" is not quite an accurate term when people say to "read the Bible". I think that the Christian way of deferring to a church authority for interpretation is a descendant of the Midrash way of interpreting hidden meanings in the words (but not as extreme in most cases).

 

Magic is magic though. If you can clear the hurdle of "the existence of magic" then whatever is written in the Good Book can be chalked up to magic.

 

As someone who enjoys the many-worlds interpretation of Quantum Physics I cant say that magic is excluded from the realm of possibility for me.

 

I will say, however, that I'd rather believe that I'm going crazy than believe that God is mad at me :laugh:

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It always boggles my mind how many people claim to "believe" in the Bible, yet they haven't actually read more than a couple verses.

 

People do this all the time with everything: history, sociology, philosophy, politics, sciences, news ect it's not isolated to religion. The amount of research you do into any subject is just a reflection of how inquisitive you are, sometimes all people want is a 'summary'.

 

If you haven't read the entire Bible, Old and New Testaments, your post looks to Mark Twain to give his interpretation which is what I am describing of people looking for summaries of the validity or details of subjects. But you may have I dunno :P Nothing's wrong with that it's just what people do.

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Well even though this thread probably plopped a lot of mud on my moniker I think we've covered some interesting ground:

 

1) Demagogue provided a evolutionary take on the question (Nature)

2) Midnight provided a psychological environment take (Nurture)

 

and finally we have:

 

3) Jdude providing religious insights

4) Springheel finding that people more versed in religion turn away from it

 

Then both talking about "religion as facade" (keeping up appearances)

 

(and perhaps a little blind-faith criticism).

 

And, of course, the overwhelming take from the community that our precious privacy is being eroded away and that even the contemplation of finding out what someone else is up to is a "slipper-slope" towards a Right-Wing nightmare world. (This community certainly is vigorous in upholding the fight against the Orwellian ;)).

 

 

I will continue to sift this stuff and cobble together my own wacky conclusions. I am grateful for the feedback and I even think those who accused me of being "a fuck" :laugh: had something interesting to say in the matter.

 

I will patiently await the steady stream of newbs to come pouring in and ignore all the contextual clues in my poorly worded intro who will, no doubt, "tell me off" :laugh: but will probably also add their own interesting spice. Until this thing finally dies and I can enter this forum without the rosy cheeks of embarrassment :laugh:

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Congrats Sotha on ruining this thread by pushing your beliefs and trying to strike up a debate to show off how smart you are. Didn't even read past your first paragraph.

Thank you! :) Just few minor comments, if you will:

*I'm not pushing anything. I'm just describing my aspect on things, just like everyone else in this thread so far, including you.

*Also, you chose the words "pushing your beliefs." It scares me that peer reviewed science, which I am essentially recommending over belief, is considered only as a belief among others.

*I'm not trying to strike up an image of smartness. Please fully read the paragraph beginning "I've tried to read the bible once." Also, read the few last sentences of the last paragraph. Anyone thinking these paragraphs are 'smart?' I think I've proved my point.

*Also, it would be decent to read the whole post before going in such a drastic measures as accusing someone of ruining something. My post certainly is off-topic, but not much more than posts by you and Spring earlier.

 

The problem with religion is also that it is apparently a very touchy subject. You can't talk about it at all without making some people angry. I hate topics that cannot be discussed, without the other party simply shutting down an interesting subject. One more downside.

 

Is faith really so vulnerable that one must protect it by choosing not to read a silly post that might poison your beliefs? I am fascinated.

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Clipper

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Well Sotha, I do see jdude's point about your implied evangelism on behalf of Science. As someone who admires Science a great deal I probably have said things that resemble your remarks at one time or another in my life. But when matters of morality come up Science will usually appeal to it's parent "Philosophy". Except now Philosophy is stabbing Science right through the heart by discrediting "Objective Truth". Postmodernism is the worst challenge to the ultimate goals of Science since the Inquisition. Most Scientists are ignoring Postmodernism as if it were a mental illness but if you take away all Faith then Postmodernism is what you have left. I outright object to the idea of "subjective reality" and believe (without rational justification) that an "Objective Truth" exists and that God is the likely cause of it.

 

What is your take on Postmodernism's assault on Truth?

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If they had actual faith in the Bible, they would not be shaken by harsh words against it.

 

That's probably true, but it's far from a good thing. Faith is nothing but stalwart belief in something for which you have insufficient evidence (it is meaningless to talk about having "faith" in something that is factually true). It's my opinion that beliefs should be based on solid evidence, and always open to revision later if new evidence comes in.

 

Congrats Sotha on ruining this thread by pushing your beliefs and trying to strike up a debate to show off how smart you are. Didn't even read past your first paragraph.

 

Isn't a bit ironic that you start off by saying you have to read something fully to understand it, and then dismiss his post without reading it? :P

 

Except now Philosophy is stabbing Science right through the heart by discrediting "Objective Truth". Postmodernism is the worst challenge to the ultimate goals of Science since the Inquisition.

 

Postmodernism has been around for many decades now and science seems to be doing just fine. Science is not much more than the judicious use of rational thinking, and I'm unaware of any successful challenge to the value of rational thought.

 

if you take away all Faith then Postmodernism is what you have left

 

Perhaps you should define what you mean by "Postmodernism". The term is a "fuzzy word" that has multiple--and in some cases contradictory--definitions.

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Yeah... That was sloppy:

 

I use Postmodernism as a catch-all for the branches that directly attack the idea of objective truth:

 

Primarily:

 

Mathematical

 

Kurt Gödel

 

Philosophical

 

Michel Foucault

 

But the halls of Postmodern academia are loaded with postulations that have their arrows and daggers right at the "Truth" that the Scientific community treasures.

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I use Postmodernism as a catch-all for the branches that directly attack the idea of objective truth:

 

If there was anything about postmodernism in that Foucault link, I missed it. Can you summarize your own view about how "objective truth" has been discredited? There's only one way I can think of, but you may mean something different.

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I hope no one here is so utterly confused by Pomo bullshit that they think it is any way a challenge to science.

 

Its purpose is indeed to confuse, but the reality of it actually presenting anything but a mess of goobledy-gook is to laugh. I recommend those who "think" its got anything to offer but easily deconstructed nonsense do some of this "actual reading" mentioned in this thread.

 

Postmodernism aims to restore the muck of faith-reliance by muddying things in the minds of those susceptible. Postmodernism wants to convince you that there is no objective truth anywhere and everything progressive must be abandoned before we all fall down. It recommends we slink back into the dark ages... It is in itself fuzzy and self-contradicting claptrapcrap -- there's your definition.

 

Let there be no confusion.

Edited by aidakeeley

"A Rhapsody Of Feigned And Ill-Invented Nonsense" - Thomas Aikenhead, On Theology, ca. 1696

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Foucault if you read further is essentially saying that insane people are really just expressing their place in a reality which we are oppressing. As if reality itself is mailable and that Opinions are the crucible in which reality is forged. I find this idea very repellent. This excerpt only slightly alludes to this concept:

 

Foucault begins his history in the Middle Ages, noting the social and physical exclusion of lepers.[28] He argues that with the gradual disappearance of leprosy, madness came to occupy this excluded position. The ship of fools in the 15th century is a literary version of one such exclusionary practice, namely that of sending mad people away in ships. In 17th century Europe, in a movement Foucault famously calls the "Great Confinement," "unreasonable" members of the population were institutionalised.[29] In the eighteenth century, madness came to be seen as the reverse of Reason, and, finally, in the nineteenth century as mental illness.

 

Foucault also argues that madness was silenced by Reason, losing its power to signify the limits of social order and to point to the truth. He examines the rise of scientific and "humanitarian" treatments of the insane, notably at the hands of Philippe Pinel and Samuel Tuke who he suggests started the conceptualization of madness as 'mental illness'. He claims that these new treatments were in fact no less controlling than previous methods. Pinel's treatment of the mad amounted to an extended aversion therapy, including such treatments as freezing showers and use of a straitjacket. In Foucault's view, this treatment amounted to repeated brutality until the pattern of judgment and punishment was internalized by the patient.

 

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Foucault if you read further is essentially saying that insane people are really just expressing their place in a reality which we are oppressing. As if reality itself is mailable...I find this idea very repellent.

 

I haven't read Foucault since university, but I certainly don't see how the quoted passage supports your interpretation of what he's saying.

 

Anyway, it seems like a moot point. I'm not sure I would call postmodernism "repellent", but I'm certainly not a fan. If you don't agree with it either, I'm not sure why we're discussing it.

 

Science and rational thought are the best tools we have to understand the universe around us. I think that was the crux of Sotha's post, and I certainly can't see anything contentious about that statement. I would add that "faith" is NOT a good tool for understanding anything, and in fact it can frequently insulate one from accepting plain facts.

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Well this is one of my personal problems I suppose. While I find Godel and Foucault repellent I cannot find a "Logical" method to refute their line of thought. And indeed many "Pomo" stances are hard to deny in pure logic. As a scientific person you must either:

 

A) Disregard Postmodernism as if it were a form of insanity or nonsense

 

or

 

B. Take the stance that "Truth itself" is immutable but there is no logical way to prove this. We must appeal to a faith in the "existence of truth".

 

So, essentially, our Scientific belief in an Objective Truth is a "gut-instinct" about the nature of reality.

 

I agree though, even if Science is merely an extension of a primordial "gut-instinct" it is the BEST method we have to examine the nature of our world.

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But here is the problem:

 

1) Science has no answers for moral questions and appeals to Logic to work out these problems

 

2) Logic falls squarely in the world of Philosophy

 

3) The most advanced examinations in Philosophy lead to Postmodern ideas

 

4) So now you have to build your moral compass in a reality that has no direction unless you take the arbitrary decision to stick with modernism

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Science and rationality does not claim to have answers to everything at the moment.

 

Faith has absolutely no answers at all. Nothing you can rely on for anything. Nothing but bullshit and, as has been pointed out, dangerous bullshit.

 

Science and rationality can be relied upon for many things. As a matter of FACT the fact that I am able to type this message in to tell you this? Requires that the science is fucking consistently fucking correct a (more billion fucking times a second) many times over...

 

And if you'd like a simpler and less than a billion-times-a-second example of how there is objective truth? Let me put this to you, you hop up and walk out into the nearest freeway, all the while praying your heart out, and lets see if you don't end up smashed to bits by the on-coming objective reality. Okay?

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"A Rhapsody Of Feigned And Ill-Invented Nonsense" - Thomas Aikenhead, On Theology, ca. 1696

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Isn't a bit ironic that you start off by saying you have to read something fully to understand it, and then dismiss his post without reading it? :P

No, because what I've been trying to avoid is the I'm right you're wrong mentality presenting itself in this thread which always leads to trouble and like I've said that if your going to debate something, know the subject matter. And after reading "I halted the process because it was boring and full of nonsense" I just thought oh great here's exactly what I was talking about someone's going to tell me how right they are. But I did go back and read it and me and Sotha even talked about it via PMS. But no biggy, I probably did sound like a hypocrite :laugh:

 

 

But TBH in regards to 'science vs religion' I see no other conflict other than creationism vs evolution present which isn't THAT big a deal IMO because the conflict can be reconciled in my mind by having the perspective that science is the tools used in creation. But then the 7 days of the Bible is where faith would come into play.

 

It's really more of an ideological conflict imo. And I'd argue it's the supremacy of man vs inferiority of man.

 

The problem I feel of extremes on either side.

 

With a view of 'everything has a scientific explanation' which is so popular some things I don't feel correct arise. If that if everything can be explained by science, then everything should be able to be predicted by science, and if everything can be predicted by scientific method without room for error, then there's a fixed destiny for all of us, and if we all have fixed destinies then there's no free will and everything I'm saying and thinking right now is predetermined and not of my choice.

 

 

But then the same goes for 'everything has a religious explanation'. Because that's making everything very complicated in of itself and making a ton of work that really doesn't have to be done to make sense.

 

I think a middle ground is an ideal spot.

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Well aidakeeley I agree with your "kick the stone" take on things but if the endeavors of Philosophy on whole have gone so far down the wrong path and have become tainted then where do we go to get our Moral ideas from?

 

Do we choose the "ancestor ideas" that brought us up to this path in the first place?

 

How do we trust the whole history of philosophical argument when this "stuff" is the end-result?

 

Or do we simply posit the existence of a "Moral Atom" that simply must exist and then hope that some empirical method can be designed to prove or deny it's existence?

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With a view of 'everything has a scientific explanation' which is so popular some things I don't feel correct arise. If that if everything can be explained by science, then everything should be able to be predicted by science, and if everything can be predicted by scientific method without room for error, then there's a fixed destiny for all of us, and if we all have fixed destinies then there's no free will and everything I'm saying and thinking right now is predetermined and not of my choice.

 

As has been pointed out, science does not claim to have all the answers. So that's a falsity.

 

But it is the only method toward arriving at any answers. And that's a fact.

 

What's more, your rejection of the very idea that determinism may be the case is illogical and entirely fear-based. Determinism has not been determined, but, nevertheless, if it is so... it is so... an inconvenient or uncomfortable truth is still the truth. You cannot simply reject these things and prop up A Holy Father to obscure facts. That would be ridiculous.

"A Rhapsody Of Feigned And Ill-Invented Nonsense" - Thomas Aikenhead, On Theology, ca. 1696

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Philosophy has been nothing but a circle-jerk for many decades. It's been nothing but an attempt for muddy-ers to pickle muddleheads fro quite some time now.

 

If you need guidance, "moral" or otherwise, then start here and continue on...

 

"The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point is to change it"

"A Rhapsody Of Feigned And Ill-Invented Nonsense" - Thomas Aikenhead, On Theology, ca. 1696

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Yay! Looks like we had a discussion after all! I'm ecstatic!

 

Ah, Philosophy. It's like an old friend that turned enemy to me. See, I was quite interested in the topic when I was younger. When I started by current studies I realised that philosophy is a messy candy.

 

It looks like you are doing rational thinking, but since your starting premises have to be very fuzzy you end up in really weird results: "Woo, I could actually be a butterfly, having a dream I'm a human!" OR "Maybe I'm already dead but I don't know it and everything before me is just flashes of my past life, which I forgot in my death throes!" If you venture too far in the swamp that is philosophy, you will get stuck in useless basic questions you cannot answer.

 

Philosophy: It's fun. It's makes good party talk in academic circles. But it does not provide reliable results. It's relatively useless. I've even sat a few university grade philosophy courses. They were fun, a mental candy, but useless as pointed out by stumpy. :wub: I've ended up in similar conclusions.

 

Let's talk about Truth.

A philosophical evaluation will lead to an incoherent mess.

*Since there are many people in the world and each have their views on things, there cannot be Objective Truth. We are mostly incapable in objective thought.

*There can only be Subjective Truth. You eyes and ears may lie to you. This leads to insanity, as you cannot rely on anything. Let's not go there.

*What you can do, basically, is improve your personal Subjective Truth. Check it from multiple directions. Try different methods to observe it. If it looks solid, it is probably real. Ask you buddy. If he sees it as well and agrees to it's existence it is probably true. Show your results to a bunch of people. If they agree that yep, it's there, then you've created a Fact. Now later, when others wonder about something, they can rely on this Fact. The Fact is small. But many Facts combined provide a stable support on which to build new Facts. Sometimes a Fact is incorrect. It may even cause the foundation to crash. But then it gets replaced and the new foundation is more solid. Such is the progress of science.

 

Science yields us relatively reliable information. It has provided us with the miracle of refigeration. The holy internal combustion engine! Even the blessed cell phone network. All of these are hard evidence that show that philosophist who claim that nothing can be understood and there is no truth are incorrect. Things can be mastered. If a natural phenomenon is understood well enough that we can make a neat application for it, the theories describing the phenomenon is probably True! Now we have found the truth! We needed no faith or god to get there. Well it helps to believe in your research but most important thing is to have an active and critical mind.

 

And now we get to the creationism part. It is so wrong! Why teach the religious dogma in school? Why not simply teach the scientific facts and an active and critical mind. They can then add the religious part if they want to. I see the mixing science as a religious dogma adding lies to verified data, so that it is easier to swallow. That is brainwashing and lying. It is lying to say that science is just another belief system. Let the people have OPTION whether to be religious or not! From my point of view, brainwashing is far from the middle spot.

 

Religion is fine as long as it does not pervert the results the scientific community produces. If a result emerges that is in contradiction to the dogma, conservative religious people will impede scientific progress. And that's not at all fun.

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Clipper

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Well these replies are better than I could have hoped for :).

 

But as it stands my only reference for "Moral guidance outside of religion" is a Marxist essay :laugh:?

 

(Unless I include Traditional Philosophy before the "Pomo" junk came along...)

 

Well I have enough references to look through to last quite some time.

 

I think I will stick to my moral calculation in reference to Demagogue's statement but I will keep an eye out and won't go entirely limp and apathetic.

 

I hope God doesn't send another dream because of this whole discussion :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: (I hope God has a sense of humor too :unsure: ). I'm a superstitious fellow I guess. ;)

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